I was looking for a way to pour some of myself out, before I completely overflowed (from "Another Couple of Drinks") - Clarice Lispector

even sadness was also something for rich people, for people who could afford it, for people who didn't have anything better to do. Sadness was a luxury. (p61)

He was a being who chose. Among the thousand things he might have been, he had gone along choosing himself. In work for which he wore glasses, discerning whatever he could and using his damp hands to grope at whatever he couldn't see, the being kept choosing and therefore would indirectly choose himself. Bit by bit he had gathered himself into being. He kept separating, separating. (beginning of "Perfil de sêres eleitos")

beauty is like that, it is a fraction of a second, quickness of a flash and then immediately it escapes. (p37)